Objective: Shea gum is found large quantities in the northern part of Ghana. Its use in the pharmaceutical industry has been limited by lack of research into the possible uses of the gum as a pharmaceutical excipient. This study seeks to investigate the use of shea gum as a suspending agent using paracetamol as a model drug.

Method: The crude shea gum was collected, purified and used as a suspending agent to formulate paracetamol suspensions using gum concentrations of 1 %w/v, 2 %w/v, 3 % w/v and 4 % w/v. These suspensions with varying gum concentrations were compared with paracetamol suspensions containing same concentrations of acacia gum.

The suspensions were all tested for their apparent viscosity, flow time, sedimentation volume over 42 days and ease of re-dispersability.

Results: The apparent viscosities of both suspensions increased when the gum concentrations were increased.

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